The Canberra Raiders are suddenly everyone’s bestie.
As soon as it was clear that Hudson Young had turned down $1.1m a year, the Raiders have been linked with a host of players. Everyone wants their share of the surplus cash. The challenge now shifts to the Raiders identifying what is real, and what is Raider Raise. While the Chiefs are the ever-present big fish taking out swimmers at Amity Island, the Raiders, for now, are the main character of the off-season.
To paraphrase the immortal Lionel Hutz, a team with money is like a mule with a spinning wheel. Canberra have plenty of cash, and everyone is trying to get paid. With Hudson spurning their advances, not only does Canberra have money to get into free-agency, they’ve got an identified, articulated, and measurable amount of cash for desperate players (and their agents!) to try and get their share of.
It’s meant the Raiders have ‘logged interest’ from Moses Leota, Liam Martin, Briton Nikora, Teig Wilton and Jordan Riki. The Canberra Times added to this list, saying Ativalu Lisati was a player they were interested in, and added Fonua Pole, J’maine Hopgood and Panthers youngster Luron Patea to a list as long as their playing roster. At this point it’s probably easier to list free agents the Raiders aren’t connected to.
It’s hard to tell which of these names is realistic. Martin’s tepid and almost tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that he was ‘interested’ in the Raiders cash didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Buzz Rothfield reported Moses Leota was the Raiders’ number one target, something almost certainly fed to him by Leota’s manager Gavin Orr, who’s been drumming up external interest since August. There’s little overlap between the Times group, and the list being reported by the rest of the media. It’s almost like a game of ‘name that guy’, just the stakes are too high.
It’s a tricky scenario for the Raiders to navigate. Every one of these players would raise Canberra’s floor. Some because the Raiders recruitment has been more bargain basement than big money. Others because they’re upcoming talents more in the usual talent market that the Raiders shop. Some purely because they’ve got more upside than Jaiyden Hunt.
There’s risk in spending big. There always is. Paying full value for established players like Liam Martin, or Moses Leota, necessarily means paying more than their worth to get them to town. Paying for players like Nikora or Riki means paying full value for flawed players. Paying for upcoming talent like Patea or Lisati means taking a punt on a player who isn’t yet proven. All of these require getting involved with players for whom the Raiders are the fallback option.
But Canberra also has the cash to spare, and the opportunity cost is less in the money spent and more in the moment missed. No matter who they target, they’ll have enough money left to make sure they find enough cash to keep Ethan Strange and whoever they keep out of Ethan Sanders and Coby Black. Upgrading those young players would be factored into the cap management process. The Hudson Young money is a free swing. They can shoot for the stars if they see fit.
But that doesn’t mean they can be profligate, and that doesn’t mean they can chase anyone that bats their eyes. Opportunity cost won’t be felt in the cap this summer, but rather in the time spent chasing a player who doesn’t want to come, and missing out on dancing with someone who might. It was a concern that drove their negotiating stance with Hudson Young, which shows it’s on their mind. It’s not about urgency, but rather knowing who and where to strike.
That is the challenge for them. Right now, everyone sees the Hudson bag like Wile E Coyote seeing the roadrunner as a roast dinner. For once the Raiders are the main character, at least in the eyes of those looking to get paid. The real risk isn’t spending their cash. It’s spending summer chasing players who were never coming.
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